AustLit

Arabic

Recent indexing of Arabic language material has concentrated on comprehensively documenting the work of Lebanese-Australian writer Jad el-Hage. El-Hage is the author of four novels. His first, الأخضر واليابس (The Green and the Dry,1988) was written in Arabic and published in Australia. In 2002, El-Hage published The Last Migration, his first novel in English, followed in 2007 by The Myrtle Tree, an English-language reworking of his earlier novel in Arabic, and in 2011 by One Day in April. As well, El-Hage is the author of eight selected works in Arabic, including both poetry and short stories, published between 1973 and 2011, and these works are now fully indexed on AustLit.

Authors whose works will receive similar thorough documentation include Shawki Moslemani and Wadih Sa’adeh, both of whom are Sydney-based Lebanese-Australian poets. Also to be indexed are the works in Arabic by Iraqi-Australian poets Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen and Khalid al-Hilli.

Chinese

Documentation of Australian works in Chinese has commenced with the indexing of anthologies including 人生廊桥梦几多 [How Many Dreams Are There in a Life] (2002), 澳华文萃 （上卷） [Digest of Chinese Australian Literature – Volume 1] and澳华文萃 （下卷） [Digest of Chinese Australian Literature – Volume 2]. The former includes 134 essays by Chinese-Australian authors while the latter two volumes include short stories, essays and poetry by 75 authors of Chinese heritage. Most of these authors write only in Chinese and their work is little known outside the Chinese-reading community.

The two volumes of the Digest of Chinese Australian Literature just mentioned are part of the publisher’s series大洋文丛 [Beijing: China Writers' Union Publishing House]; indexing of other works in this series include 田地短篇小说集 by田地 [A collection of short stories by Tian Di] and墨尔本，世纪的错觉 [Melbourne, the Illusion of the Century] (2003) by蔡子轩 [Cai Zixuan].

Much work remains to be done in this area, with many collections of short stories and poetry by Chinese-Australian writers awaiting documentation. Amongst these will be included publications in Chinese by Australia’s most prolific Chinese-heritage writer Ouyang Yu.

Polish

Documentation of works in Polish began this year with an investigation into the Polish-language literary journal Echo Opowiadania, published in Perth WA in 1952. Contributors to this journal included such important Polish-Australian writers as Lech Paszkowski and Andrzej Chciuk.

Chciuk’s work Pamiętnik poetycki [Poetic Memoir] (1961) has been comprehensively indexed, with the record for each poem providing translations of titles and first lines and in some cases with extensive notes on culturally, historically or linguistically specific references made in the original Polish poems. See, for example, 'Traktat o tęsknocie'.

Other works indexed include: Wiersze zebrine, [Selected Poems] (1963) by Zdzisław Marek; Poezje wybrane [Selected Poems] (2006) by Krystyna Wanda Jackiewicz; Śmierci mi bliskie [Death Close to Me] (2008) by Bogumiła Żongołłowicz; and Na smyczy słońca [On the Sun’s Leash] (2006) by Marek Battero. Although these represent only a small sample of the many works in Polish written in Australia since the 1950s, they do give a sense of the diversity and significance of the literary activities of this linguistic community.

Spanish

Works written in Spanish have been a focus for the team for some time now and a great deal of the literary production of this community has been documented. However, new works continue to be discovered. For example, the previously mentioned Polish-Australian writer, Marek Battero, is a multilingual author and one of his novellas, Cuentos de las cigüeñas [Stories of the storks] (2003), is written in Spanish. Other recent, but as-yet undocumented, works include Crónicas de Australia (2011) by Nepo Washington Gonzalez, and Arabescos (2009) by Carmen Ibis Novoa.

Vietnamese

In 2013 the team is planning for renewed attention to literary work in Vietnamese. Previous research has resulted in the comprehensive indexing of literary journals including Tập Hợp and Việt as well as selected works and anthologies covering the literary output of a range of Vietnamese-Australian authors. As is the case with Spanish-language literature, new publications continue to appear; for example, in 2009 the Sydney-based Vietnamese language newspaper Việt Luận published an anthology of works that had appeared in its issues. Indexing of this collection is underway.

Other work to be undertaken may include the indexing of literary content in newspapers (Việt Luận, Dân Việt, Tiếng nói người Việt, Nhân Quyè̂n) all of which have regularly carry short stories, poems and essays by Vietnamese-Australian writers.